Burns Country

Travelled through the vale of Nith, here little like a vale,
it is so broad, with irregular hills rising up on each
side. There is a great deal of arable land; the corn ripe; trees here and there, plantations, clumps, coppices, and a newness in everything. So much of the gorse and broom rooted out that you wonder why it is not all gone, and yet there seems to be almost as much gorse and broom as corn; and they grow one among another you know not how. Crossed the Nith; the vale becomes narrow, and very pleasant; cornfields, green hills, clay cottages, the river’s bed rocky, with woody banks. Left the Nith about a mile and a half, and reached Brownhill, a lonely inn, where we slept. The view from the windows was pleasing. It is an open country, open yet all over hills. At a little distance were many cottages among trees, that looked very pretty. Brownhill is about seven or eight miles from Ellisland. I fancied to myself, while I was sitting in the parlour, that Burns might have caroused there, for most likely his rounds extended so far.
Dorothy Wordsworth

I'd heard of a man named Burns - supposed to be a poet;
But, if he was, how come I didn't know it?
They told me his work was very, very neat,
So I replied: 'But who did he ever beat?'
Muhammad Ali

Return To Scottish Quotations